3-on-3 Basketball Tournament and the Power of New Shoes

This past Friday four of my high school basketball boys were invited to a huge 3-on-3 basketball tournament hosted by Adidas. It is was a three day event and NBA superstar Dwight Howard even attended part of it. Over 200 teams participated with four separate tournaments: elementary school age, middle school age, high school age, and university age. Every participant had to pay a $60 registration fee, except for my boys. They were invited on behalf of Adidas since they won the Seoul orphanage basketball tournament. They also received an exception to not have to wear Adidas shoes at the event, since none of my boys have basketball shoes.

I’m going to photo-blog about the event, so please scroll through to the bottom. I believe you will be blessed, especially by what I write about the final picture…

Pic 1 – The event was held at Times Square Mall in Seoul. There were two courts set up inside the mall and two courts set up outside the mall. Pretty cool!

Pic 2 – Here are my basketball boys that I coach along with Dong Min dorm dad. My boys (left to right) are Il Ho, Chae Hyun, Soo Hoon, and Yong Shin. Dwight Howard also joined us for the picture…

Pic 3 – The amount of teams participating was ridiculous. 16 elementary, 32 middle school, 64 high school, and 100+ university teams were participating. Here is part of the high school bracket. Our team name is 지온.

Pic 4 – Here is a picture of orientation for the younger players. They all received inside-outside black/white Adidas jerseys. Very nice! My boys will definitely be wearing them when we have the Seoul orphanage basketball tournament in early October.

Pic 5 – We arrived at the event at 8:30am. We waited and we waited for our first game, and then at around 1pm found out that our first opponent hadn’t shown up. We won by default. That meant we had to wait a few more hours before we finally got to play in the second round. Amidst the waiting we watched other teams play, had lunch, practiced a little on a mini practice court, and then continued to sit and wait. Here is a picture of a game happening inside the mall.

Pic 6 – Finally! At a little after 5pm and after waiting almost nine hours we had our first game. In this pic I’m giving my kids some last words of encouragement and then praying a short prayer for them. They were very nervous, but thankfully I had gotten some time to encourage them. I had to emphasize to each of them how I’m proud of them and that I’m not concerned with whether they win or lose, but whether they give effort and play hard until the end. As long as they don’t give up (like most orphanage kids do whenever they’re losing) or complain or mope around, I would not be disappointed in them regardless of the score. And to be honest, I didn’t expect my kids to win. This tournament was for real ballers, kids who play all the time and are really good (who else would pay $60 to play??). My kids are good, but we only play once a week and they are much better at soccer. They honestly didn’t belong at this tournament, but I agreed to have them go knowing it would be a learning/character building experience for them.

Pic 7 – My kids in white greeting the other team in black before the game. The other team wasn’t tall so I had a little hope we might score a bit and give them a good game. The other team had already won though against a much bigger and stronger team so I knew it was going to be difficult.

Pic 8 – My boy Il Ho played point guard for us. He has horrible eyesight and always wears glasses, but then the referee told him last second that he wouldn’t be allowed to wear the glasses during the game. So our point guard was half-blind (no exaggeration). I was proud of him though. Despite that difficulty and also having jammed one of his fingers (on his left hand) while practicing earlier, he didn’t complain and played through it all. In this pic I also like the spectator yawning in the background. It had been a really long day already… =)

Pic 9 – Here is a pic of our top player Soo Hoon driving to the basket. Sadly he quickly got called for four fouls and fouled out within the first two minutes of the game. Two of the fouls were completely phantom calls. The ref for our game made a number of egregious calls with most of them against us. I was again proud of my kids because they didn’t overreact. Most kids would have cursed or had really bad body language because of all the bad calls. Losing Soo Hoon right away and having a half-blind Il Ho definitely didn’t help our already low chances… =)

Pic 10 – Yong Shin is my other top player. He is tall and rebounds really well. He had a number of chances this game but was a bit nervous and overshot it. I was glad he got this experience though. I know he is going to be a lot calmer during the orphanage basketball tournament next month when the competition is more at my kids’ level. In this picture Yong Shin is going up for a close shot…

Pic 11 – My 4th player Chae Hyun is the least experienced of my four because he often had to miss our practices due to late school hours. He was the most nervous and started on the bench, but because Soo Hoon fouled out so quickly he had to play for most of the game. Despite being thoroughly overwhelmed by the competition, he didn’t give up but kept attacking. In this picture he is driving for a difficult lay-up…

I have to be honest, we got beat badly. We had chances and when Soo Hoon was playing our defense wasn’t too bad, but once he fouled out the other team sliced us up over and over again. It was tough for my kids because of the bad foul calls, all our missed opportunities, and because we had waited for so long to finally get to play and then we lost so lopsidedly. They pulled themselves together though. Sky and other Jerusalem Ministry staff were there to cheer for the kids and they also encouraged them. I know because I had already told them that I wouldn’t be disappointed in them regardless of the score as long as they tried, that they knew my smiling face after the game was genuine and that I wasn’t going to give them any words of scorn or rejection.

Now comes the powerful last picture…

Before and during the tournament I had prayed that we would get some sort of sponsor who would buy my kids basketball shoes. While kids at the children homes all have clothes and such, shoes are extremely lacking. Shoes cost a lot more than shirts and pants, so my kids usually wear sandals or very cheap slipper like shoes. They also get donations of used shoes from people so my kids will wear those until they completely fall apart. I gave one of my big boys a pair of my old basketball shoes and he kept wearing them even after a hole formed under his big toe. It wasn’t until the bottom of the shoe completely tore off that he finally threw them away.

I had hoped to meet Dwight Howard at the tournament and ask him for help, but I never got that chance. The other Adidas representatives were all young and didn’t have that power to sponsor the kids. Instead, though, one of my prayer supporters unexpectedly wrote me and told me she would like to get them the shoes. Praise God!

I told the dorm dad about it and he knew it would be a lot of money. He always feels bad about things like that, so he was reluctant about going forth. After the bad loss he said to me, “The kids lost badly. What have they done to deserve such a nice gift?” I knew he didn’t mean anything bad by that, but his words summed up a lot of the mentality of the kids and the orphanages… you do well and you’re rewarded and loved… you do poorly and we are disappointed in you and you get no reward. I immediately knew that it was actually better that we had waited so long, won the first game by forfeit and in turn had to face a tougher team, only to lose so poorly. With all the waiting and the disappointment of losing so badly, I knew the kids would least expect any type of “reward.” The gift of new shoes would be a gift of unconditional love and favor. They couldn’t point at themselves and say they got it because they deserved it. Instead they could know it’s because I care for them unconditionally (as does my friend sponsoring them).

Before telling them about the sponsor, I asked them about the shoes they were currently wearing. Yong Shin, our tallest play (6 foot) was wearing sneakers belonging to a 7th grader from the children’s home, sneakers two sizes too small for him. Soo Hoon, my star player, was wearing another boy’s torn up sneakers that had lost the padding inside the shoe and only had the bare sole left inside. Il Ho and Chae Hyun were also wearing borrowed shoes that were too small for their feet. Such is the life for these kids. Everything borrowed, everything used, everything too small. Can you imagine playing a basketball game in someone else’s used walking shoes that are two sizes too small for your feet? Or in used, torn up shoes with all the padding ripped out of them?

Pic 12 – Here is a picture of my kids with their brand new, nice Adidas shoes. They got a 40% discount, so these shoes are all legit, good ones (Derrick Rose shoes). In the Bible the prodigal son received a robe, a ring, and a pair of shoes from his father upon returning. The shoes signified that the prodigal was not a servant or a slave, but a son of the house. Only sons had shoes in those times. Servants and slaves had to go barefoot. My boys are sons! They finally have new shoes that actually fit their feet and they can be proud to wear. Thank you, God!

Hope you were blessed!